80 The Bibk of Nature 



potentiality of giving rise to all that follows, and 

 thus the Lowest Common Denominator of Science 

 becomes the counterpart of the Greatest Common 

 Measure of Philosophy. 1 



Nature of Scientific Interpretation. But the more 

 immediate answer to the recoil from the scientific 

 position is to be found by considering what most 

 modern workers mean by scientific interpretation. 



The scientific interpretation of inanimate nat- 

 ure is always after this pattern: Given a certain 

 collocation of material particles in certain con*- 

 ditions, the result after a certain time will be so 

 and so. 2 



The problem is to redescribe natural hap- 

 penings in the simplest available terms, namely, 

 in terms of mechanics in the wide sense. Some 

 of the terms used are simpler or more irreducible 

 than others; thus that form of mutual attraction 

 which we call gravitation is probably more irre- 

 ducible than what we call chemical affinity. 

 Some which seemed irreducible in the past have 

 undergone simplification; thus Heat is no longer 

 an "element" or an "entity" or a "force" but 



1 To identify them violently, as a recent writer does, 

 who calls the Ether "the fountain of all Being," "the 

 hitherto unknown God," seems to us to be a complete 

 misunderstanding, and as grotesque an anthropomorphism 

 as any savage is guilty of. 



* It need hardly be said that in many cases we have to 

 write uncertain instead of certain^ but let that pass. 



